The Life, Legacy and Theology of M. M. Thomas

'Only Participants Earn the Right to be Prophets'

Jesudas M. Athyal,George Zachariah,Monica Melanchthon

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317025474
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia

M.M. Thomas was one of the chief architects of the modern ecumenical movement. An outstanding theologian, his original and rather unconventional explorations into ecumenical social ethics remain highly relevant even today. Long before liberation theology burst on the scene, Thomas raised his prophetic voice for the liberation of humanity from the dehumanizing structures. Focusing on the theological and social contributions of M.M. Thomas and his legacy for our times, and published with the support of the Council for World Mission to coincide with the centenary of Thomas' birth, this collection brings together an international panel of distinguished scholars, theologians and church leaders.

Part I
The man and his legacy

1
M. M. Thomas’s theology of society

An overview

Jesudas M. Athyal

The first challenge in the new situation has been that of the new life-style of the governor to the simplicity and ascetic character of the life-style which I had accepted and practiced all through the past. A Governor’s life-style in Raj Bhavan is almost an established one, quite artificial, luxurious with all symbols of authority – with lots of bearers, gardeners, peons, security personnel, secretaries and ADCs. All goings out and comings in are accompanied by the ADCs, pilot cars, police vans and other paraphernalia. I thought I could get a private way of going to the Churches on Sundays, but that is not permitted for allegedly or valid security and other reasons. And I am gradually conforming myself to the new life-style and it is only in the inner self of spiritual detachment that one can keep oneself from falling into a spiritual conformity of the new life-style. I hope that I would be able to keep an inner personal poverty of spirit without falling spiritually into the outer externally accepted life-style. It is possible for the present because the new life-style is seen as external to me, but one has to watch that habits lead to the surrender of the inner self to the outer. Before that happens, I suppose, I can quit the post!¹

The spiritual questions that M. M. Thomas addressed to himself all through his life, coupled with a rigorous self-discipline and a certain loneliness in his new settings – all found expression in the above paragraph from a letter that he as the Governor of the state of Nagaland wrote to a team of young people that he had nurtured as a fellowship at his home in Tiruvalla, Kerala. Thomas’s theology of society is integrally linked to his autobiography. As he grew up in an evangelical Christian household, became a young man wrestling with the social and political problems of his time, was thrust in the position of being a leader of the worldwide ecumenical movement, retired from official work into the ascetic lifestyle of his home and now in his gubernatorial position – in every situation his theology was the faith response in a particular context.

This chapter that deals with Thomas’s theology of society starts with a historical sketch that was often his starting point: the transition of the traditional societies to the modern technological culture and the spiritual and cultural dimensions inherent in this change. The chapter will further consider his work in posing an ecumenical challenge to models of economic and social development that were insensitive to the historic wrong of injustice and violence. Thomas’s Biblical reflection on the role of the State was an important aspect of his theology of society and will be discussed here. Finally, the chapter will also consider the secular culture and pluralistic consciousness, especially in the multifaith context of India and Thomas’s solidarity with the victims of oppression and marginalization. While the chapter touches upon all phases of his life, there is a special focus on the last two decades or so of his life when I had the privilege of working closely with him. The effort in this chapter is not to duplicate the discussion of Thomas’s theology, which has been ably done by the other writers in this volume, but to carry that discussion forward, especially in the light of some of his unpublished writings during his last few years.

While this chapter focuses primarily on Thomas’s theology of society, there are a number of other dimensions to his theology and ministry that need to be celebrated. The other chapters in this volume, written by well-known scholars, discuss many of these areas.

The humanity of Christ

M. M. Thomas’s theology of society is rooted in his understanding of the dialectical tension between salvation and humanization. The William Carey Lectures that he delivered in 1970, and later published as a booklet,² represent his most mature thinking on the subject. He found the concept of salvation and humanisation a valuable guide for a theology of society, inter-religious dialogue and dialogue with secular movements. He argued that the revolutionary changes in science, technology, democratization and de-colonialization after the Second World War have within them the promise of Christ for a fuller and richer human life for all. The revolution has enhanced people’s sense of history and destiny. True, it has inherent in it the potential for evil such as individual and collective egoism, selfishness and idolatry. The revolution can also be betrayed from within. However, Jesus Christ who is present in the midst of all this is victorious over these evil powers through His Cross and Resurrection and His Kingdom. “We should see the revolutionary hand of God in Christ, carrying history forward through judgement and redemption to the consummation of the Kingdom and calling the Church to participate with him in it”.³

In a paper Thomas wrote for a seminar in Madras in April 1995, he further elaborated on the radical changes in our times as three “revolutions” in the areas of technology, human rights and secularization. These were (1) the developments in scientific rationality and technology that created the revolution in nature-human relations, (2) the revolution in interpersonal relations due to the self-awakening of individuals to their personhood and (3) the struggles for the democratization of the decision-making institutions and the secularization process that involved the break-up of the grip of religion and the religious laws on the structures of the state and society resulting in a revolution in the self-world–God relations.⁴

The transition of the traditional societies to the modern technological culture and the spiritual and cultural dimensions inherent in this change was an important part of the revolutionary changes. Taking this question as the starting point, Thomas edited in the 1960s a book on the self-identity of the Tribals (the indigenous people) in the context of modernization.⁵ Indigenous people drawn from the major areas of Tribal concentration in India participated in this study that discussed the challenges involved in the direction and goal of the awakening among their people. During his work, almost three decades later, in Nagaland as the Governor of the state, Thomas probed deeper into the question, not any longer as an outsider to the Tribal situation, but as one who personally experienced the currents and undercurrents of Naga politics and society. He argued that the transition from a traditional tribal society to the modern technological culture – a change that took many centuries elsewhere – was taking place in Nagaland at a hurtling pace, over a span of a few years. These changes affected not only the traditional social life but even the cultural and moral values of the people. With regard to the Naga self-understanding and response in the light of their vision of the future, he believed that “the positive elements in these trends will overcome the negative and that the people will fight the demoralizations inherent in the process of modernization”.⁶

Thomas’s theological methodology was rooted in an exposition of faith that was understood in the exploration of the context. He had a strong inclination (or prejudice) to start with the secular world rather than with Christianity. Any exercise at interpreting his theology should, therefore, take seriously the real-life situation of the people and their struggles for fuller humanity. His anthropological/theological reflections, while focusing on the challenges posed by the social movements of the last half a century, also provide precious orientation in contextual theological thinking. Addressing the criticism that his approach was anthropological, Thomas asserted that theological terminology, to be relevant today, had to be in anthropological language. But it is not so much humanism as the humanity of Christ. “The humanity of Christ appeals to me. I have belief in his humanity as expressed on the Cross and affirmed in his resurrection”.⁷ He however noted that there is an inherent limitation in all human actions – the danger in the human tendency to decide for others what was good for them. The problem, therefore, is not so much between the good and the evil as the good becoming evil and tyrannical in the future when power turns in its favour. Thomas, therefore, states that he had a pessimistic approach to all social action. The self-righteousness of human beings can easily turn tyrannical and demonic. This is true of religious as well as secular movements.

Several chapters in this volume refer to the centrality of the Cross in the theology of M. M. Thomas. For him, the Cross of Jesus stands at the centre of history and the point of reference for social transformation. He described Christ’s humanity as “cruciform humanity” and affirmed that the challenge of the Cross when posited against human self-justification can release people for a new existence.

The cross of Jesus is also the answer to the human problem of justification of human existence. Responding in faith to the free Divine forgiveness and acceptances offered by the crucified Christ, man is released from the necessity to seek security and justification by his own spirituality and moral or social idealism. But the release from the anxiety from the search of means for self-justification is a release for self-giving love of God and neighbour, which the Cross itself reveals as the destiny of man.⁸

As Thomas put it, our mission today is to discern the relation between the Christian spirituality of the Cross and its expressions in prophetic theology and political theology. At a meeting of social activists, he pointed out that the Cross was “the symbol of ultimate hope for tortured humanity.… It is precisely here that the spirituality – Christian spirituality – becomes the basis of our identification with the people who are the victims of oppression”.⁹

Alan Boesak, in his chapter in this volume, argues that in the context of struggles for justice, M. M. Thomas spoke of love firstly as God’s love for the world but Thomas went on to add that we come to this love “by way of the cross”. Referring to the black suffering as a result of the dehumanization of colonization, slavery, racial hatred and apartheid where the powerless, the weak and the abused are not just the bearers of the cross but “they are the crucified; they are not simply standing in the shadow of the cross, they are on the cross”, Boesak, however, goes on to affirm the relevance of the message of repentance inherent in the theology of cross of Thomas: “We cannot look upon the cross and the lynching tree without the repentance that moves us to conversion and action.” Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, too, in her chapter points out that for Thomas, the Cross was more than a means of human atonement and salvation; the Cross is God’s identification with the suffering humanity – the whole suffering humanity. It was the Cross understood as identification that attracted Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian masses to Jesus Christ. For them, and for countless others involved in struggles for justice, the Cross was the symbol of God’s own cosmic identification.

Transition from development to justice

The mid-twentieth century was a heady period for the Asian-African nations as they emerged from colonialism into independence and self-confidence and were posed to redraw their own history and destiny. The indigenous leadership of the newly independent nations was determined to lead their countries out of the poverty and social inequality that had plagued them for long. The “development model”, based on the values of self-reliance, industrial growth and economic planning, for the establishment of a welfare state was generally understood as the way forward. The path represented by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and other leaders rooted in these principles and on the values of democracy and secularism had a great impact not only in India but in the developing world as a whole. The mainline thinking in the churches in the emerging democracies, too, more or less, went along with the political thinking that “growth and development” was the path towards prosperity. Christian participation in nation-building was accepted as the slogan by the churches. “Development Departments” that aimed to mobilize the students, youth and others sprung up under the various churches.

From the beginning, however, the Asian-African leaders in the ecumenical movement questioned the development model that did not include a concomitant focus on righting the historic wrong of social injustice and structural violence. They affirmed that “the notions of social justice and self-reliance have to radically re-define the meaning of development”.¹⁰ The World Conference on Church and Society that met in Geneva in 1966 with M. M. Thomas as the Chairperson was a landmark event where the participants “insisted that the churches should be more active in promoting a worldwide revolutionary opposition to the capitalist political and economic system being imposed on the new nations by the Western industrial countries, which was leading to new types of colonialism and oppression”.¹¹ The momentum generated by the conference provided the opportunity for social scientists such as S. L. Parmar, C. T. Kurien, Ninan Koshy, and others to argue that “development is disorder because it changes existing social and economic relationships, breaks up old relationships to create new, brings about radical alternations in the values and structures of society”.¹²

In a chapter in the Festschrift in honour of C. I. Itty,¹³ M. M. Thomas surveyed the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) search for a concept of development which could liquidate world poverty; and within that framework he assessed the developmental work in India. He was convinced that a viable pattern of development will include a concern for social justice and the direct involvement of the ordinary citizens in the decision-making process. As he put it, “People’s struggles against poverty and oppression in India and elsewhere in the Third World require clear models of development which comprehend politics of struggle and renewal of culture and appropriate technology within them in such a way that they not only liquidate poverty but also build a ‘just, participatory and sustainable’ society in all parts of the earth”.¹⁴

Thomas drew a distinction between the work of the churches in the areas of economic and social development programs on the one hand and social action on the other. The conventional programs often stay very well within the existing...